Action wins better pay

Published Sat 5 Jul 2003

Issue No. 1858

SOUTH YORKSHIRE bus workers voted to accept First Group's latest improved pay offer, which they won through strike action. Over 1,100 workers, members of the TGWU, held three days of strikes and threatened to stage a four-day strike.

The company was forced to retreat on its attempts to remove two bank holidays from the workers. First Group has also increased workers' pay across all rates, including newer and longstanding drivers, by an average of 5.8 percent. Drivers can now also progress onto the higher rates of pay more quickly.

TWO DAYS of strike action by bus workers in Bournemouth has won them an increased pay deal. The 260 drivers and engineers working for Yellow Bus, run by Bournemouth council, went on strike last month. Yellow Bus offered them a 4.9 percent rise this year but the workers rejected the offer. It included a freeze on their sick pay for two years and other strings.

They planned to hold two further days of strike action but voted last week to accept Yellow Bus's revised pay deal that improved sick pay provision. Bus workers in the nearby Wiltshire and Dorset company are still involved in a dispute over the company's attempt to ditch their final salary pension scheme. The 460 workers, members of the RMT union, were due to hold a six-day strike last month. Although the workers' strikes have now been suspended a deal has not yet been hammered out.